


The Flatmate

by RoseAngel



Series: The Red Thread [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, First Meetings, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 02:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8559943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseAngel/pseuds/RoseAngel
Summary: An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break. - Ancient Chinese belief
A series of alternate ways that John and Sherlock could have met. PROMPT FIC.
Prompt #9: 'new roommate cooks alone for the first time and almost burns down the house’ au.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First things first, I apologise for my unexpectedly long hiatus. What some of you may not know is that this year was my final, honours year of my bachelor's degree. What this means is that the past six months since I last uploaded, I've run three experiments that ended up with over 160 participants between the three of them, and then wrote it up into a 12,000 word thesis. So, that's kind of taken up most of my time. Fortunately, that thesis has now been submitted, and I can now get back into the swing of writing fiction! I figured I would post this one today because I've made you all wait too long, and then I will endeavour to go back into my original weekend posting schedule. So, for now, enjoy!
> 
> A million thanks to Becca (LlamaWithAPen) for finding time to beta this.
> 
> Today's prompt comes from Tumblr user ciareus' "Guess who loves aus" post.

It had been exactly one week since John's new flatmate had moved in, and John had come to the conclusion that he was a vampire.

For starters, John had not yet _seen_ the man. He had been living in the same flat as him for an entire week – and the flat was certainly not large – and yet, John could not even tell you what he looked like. He knew from a discussion with his landlady that the flatmate's name was Sherlock, because she had mentioned it as they were clearing out the second bedroom in preparation for the new arrival, but beyond that, John knew nothing. When he came home from work one day, there were boxes in the living room, and the door to the second bedroom was shut tight, which was how John knew that his flatmate had arrived. Since then, however, he had not so much as caught a glimpse of the man. John would worry that his flatmate was intentionally avoiding him, but as they had not had a personal encounter, he could not for the life of him tell you what it was that he had done to warrant such behaviour.

It was not that the man had not left his room in the entire week that they had been living together. No, he had simply only ever left his room when John was either out of the flat, or in his own room, out of the way. John had a full-time job, so that gave the other man eight or so hours a day to wander around the rest of the flat, or to leave the flat, without John seeing him. Even more striking, however, was the number of times that John heard him leave the flat at night. After John went up to bed, he would hear the second bedroom door open, followed by the front door a few moments later. Most of these nights, the man was still gone when John woke up the next morning. John did not know what it was that the man did in the dark of night, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know, either. It just further supported the vampire theory.

Another thing that supported the vampire theory was that the man did not seem to eat. John had been looking forward to having a flatmate, because it meant that the work he had to do in maintaining the flat and taking care of himself would be halved. They could take turns cooking and cleaning – John would only need to cook half the meals, do half the dishes, and so forth. Instead, even with the new flatmate there, John was still doing all the cooking and all the cleaning, though there were never any extra dishes for him to clean. If the man ate, he must have been clearing up after himself, leaving no evidence of the food. However, John was also aware of the fact that the food in the cupboards and in the fridge did not seem to be decreasing any more rapidly than usual. John hadn't bothered counting particular items – he wasn't that ridiculous – but it certainly seemed to him that the only person eating the food in the fridge was John himself.

So, John had a flatmate who he had never seen, who did not eat, and who left the house at night (and, perhaps that meant he did not sleep). It definitely made it seem like said flatmate was a vampire.

By the end of the week, John was becoming increasingly curious about this mysterious being of a flatmate. It was getting to the point where he was beginning to feel desperate enough to do something to lure his flatmate out of hiding. Perhaps, he thought, he could stay up late one night. He could sit in the living room, and read a book. Maybe he would even pretend to go to his room first, just in case his flatmate was intentionally avoiding him. Then, the flatmate would believe that it was safe to emerge, and he would exit his room, and John could finally, finally put a face to a name. Maybe it would even give him an excuse to strike up conversation, too.

John ended up deciding against this plan, however, because as he thought about it, he realised that the idea was a little creepy. If the man _was_ avoiding him, then surely he had a reason for it, even if John did not have the faintest clue what that reason was. If that were the case, the man would probably be displeased to discover that John had tricked him into emerging from his room and interacting with John, and it might destroy any chance of a potentially civilised flatshare before it had even begun. And, if the man was not avoiding him, then surely they would meet each other eventually. John could not believe that they could live in the same flat for a prolonged period of time without ever meeting, even if this Sherlock was a vampire who only ever came out at night.

And, John was right.

(About them eventually running into each other, not about Sherlock actually being a vampire).

John would have expected their first meeting to be mediocre. He expected them to eventually leave their rooms at the same time, maybe by chance, or maybe they would both come out when their landlady next did her inspection. They would end up seeing each other, and maybe they would stop for introductions, or maybe just nod in passing as they went on their way. Either way, their first meeting would be simple and mundane, just like any other set of flatmates.

John did not expect his first meeting with the mysterious flatmate to begin at three o'clock in the morning, starting with the smell of smoke and the sound of a fire alarm.

Fire alarms are rather brilliant inventions. A deep enough sleeper could sleep through the smell of smoke. A person who is distracted enough by another activity could miss the signs that indicate a fire is starting in another room, and they could remain unaware of it until it is too late. A fire alarm, however, is much harder to miss. It's much harder to ignore the relentless beeping of an alarm that has detected smoke, and even some of the deepest sleepers will awaken to the sound of it. Plus, if you are woken by the sound of a fire alarm in the middle of the night, you do not spend several minutes slowly coming around, wondering what the sound is or how you should turn it off, as though it's a morning alarm. No, when a fire alarm goes off in the dead of night, you immediately go from fast asleep to panic mode, your fight-or-flight response kicking in and telling you to get out of the room _immediately_.

Of course, in between being fast asleep and being wide awake and ready to flee from the room at top speed, there are a few seconds where you are unable to do anything, because you're both groggy and terrified at the same time. But, that's a rather unavoidable consequence of being woken by any loud and relatively foreign noise.

This was precisely what happened when the fire alarm went off in the flat. John was hardly a deep sleeper to start off with: a sound much quieter than that could have woken him up. The fire alarm forced him into the land of consciousness, his heart going from slow and calm to pounding loudly in his chest in a second. He recognised the sound as an alarm immediately – that much was obvious – but for the first several seconds, he felt disoriented and confused, not sure where he was or what he was doing or why everything was so loud or _what was going on_.

After those several seconds, however, the more alert, conscious, rational part of John's brain kicked in, telling him that the sound was a fire alarm, which meant there was a fire, which meant that he needed to get out of the building _now_.

The fire alarms that John had been through during school always told him that, to escape from a burning building, you need to drop to the floor and crawl to avoid as much smoke inhalation as possible. The issue was that panic – especially panic that came with being woken up by a fire alarm – makes it very hard to think about things you learnt in school. John's priority was to get out of the building as fast as possible, and that was much easier to do on his feet. If he had had a second to think, he would have dropped to the floor, because running is not quicker if you pass out from smoke inhalation. With the fire alarm blaring, however, John did not have the chance to consider this.

He yanked the bedroom door open, remembering only after he had grasped the handle that he should have checked for heat behind the door first so he did not burn his hand. Fortunately, the handle was not hot against his skin. There was no sign of flames licking their way up the stairs to his room, but there was a smell of smoke in the air, and he had seen video clips that showed how quickly fires could spread. He might not have had long. He raced down the stairs as quickly as he could manage, one hand on the railing to make sure he did not stumble and fall, and then he reached the landing. He went to move to the next flight of stairs, out the front door and to the safety of the street, and then hesitated. Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye – a tall figure atop a chair in the kitchen.

When John turned to get a proper look, he realised that the tall figure was a man who was unscrewing the alarm from the roof, taking it down, and finally pulling out the batteries.

The sound ceased instantly. After the deafening beeping, the silence rang in John's ears. However, he did have more important things to think about than the man who had just broken basic safety rule number one and taken the batteries out of the fire alarm. His priority was the actual fire – which, yes, there was. The actual fire was not spreading its way over the floor or engulfing the flat. It was contained to a saucepan on the stove, in which hard sticks of spaghetti sat, burning like an oversized candle.

"What the hell?" John said, rushing over and grabbing the fire blanket from its place under the sink. He was suddenly grateful that he had actually paid attention when he had first moved in and his landlady had shown him where it was. The gas on the stove had fortunately already been turned off (at least John could say that the man had done something right), and he tossed the blanket over the saucepan, smothering the flames. He kept an eye on it for a moment, just to be sure, but when flames did not lick up from underneath the blanket he concluded that the fire had been effectively dealt with. He let out a breath, and then turned to face the man behind him, who had, by then, climbed off the chair and was standing by the kitchen table, still holding the fire alarm and the batteries (in separate hands).

John did not recognise this man's face, but it was probably safe to assume that he was the mysterious flatmate, and not a stranger who had broken into John's flat to set fire to John's spaghetti.

"What the hell were you doing?" John asked, staring at the man incredulously.

"Cooking," the man replied.

"You and I have very different definitions of 'cooking'. Put the damn batteries back into the fire alarm."

"But it was beeping."

"Yes, because there was a fire, that's what it does. You don't pull batteries out of a fire alarm, ever. _Especially_ not when it's going off. How is it supposed to warn you that there's, you know, a fire?"

The man rolled his eyes (which seemed entirely inappropriate to John – _John_ should be the one rolling his eyes, because his flatmate was an idiot. Or he had a death wish. Or he was an idiot with a death wish).

"I didn't need it to warn me that there was a fire," said the idiot-with-a-death-wish. "I could _see_ that there was a fire. I could also see that the fire was not at immediate risk of catching on anything other than the spaghetti itself, so the logical thing to do was to stop the fire alarm from beeping before you and Mrs Hudson woke in a panic."

"The logical thing," John muttered.

The man ignored him, continuing, "Clearly I did not manage fast enough, given you're now awake and lecturing me on the use of fire alarms." He paused for a moment, tilting his head to the side, and then he added, "But, there's no sound from downstairs, so perhaps Mrs Hudson managed to sleep through the alarm."

"No one sleeps through a fire alarm, idiot," John said. "They're designed so that you _can't_ sleep through them."

"You could if you took sleeping pills."

"Yes, and Mrs Hudson doesn't take sleeping pills. Herbal soothers, yes, but nothing that would make her sleep through a fire alarm. She's with her sister this weekend. Didn't she tell you that?"

"Probably," the man said dismissively. "I have her on semi-permanent mute."

"You -" John started, and then shook his head. There were higher priorities on his list. "Never mind. How did you manage to set fire to spaghetti?"

"Rather easily, as a matter of fact," the man said, moving over to the stove and removing the blanket from the saucepan. John felt his body tense instantly, but the fire was well and truly gone now. There were no signs of the flames that had been there moments before; there were just sticks of spaghetti with blackened ends. The man examined the spaghetti closely, though John did not know why he bothered, given he was fairly sure that flaming spaghetti was not salvable.

"Did you know that dry spaghetti is flammable?" the man asked.

"No, I did not," John said, "because I have never put dry spaghetti close enough to an open flame to make that discovery. And, while you're cooking spaghetti, you shouldn't be putting it close enough to the flame for it to catch fire." He paused for a moment, and then asked, "Did you try to set it on fire on purpose?"

"Of course not. Why would I do that?"

"I have absolutely no idea, but this whole situation seems a lot more believable if you had actively tried to put the spaghetti next to the fire. I don't see how you could have put it in the saucepan with the intention of cooking it and still manage to mess it up this badly."

"Clearly, it's completely possible."

"Possible, yes, I'm sure, but surely it's a bit difficult to do accidentally."

"So you think I got out of bed at three o'clock in the morning to see how flammable dry spaghetti sticks are?" the man said, rolling his eyes as though that was the most idiotic idea he had ever heard. "Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm being ridiculous?" John repeated. "You're the one who set fire to spaghetti!"

The man stared at him for a moment, his expression blank, and then he pursed his lips together, and suddenly, John realised how hysterically funny the whole situation was. He tried to bite back a laugh, but it bubbled up from his throat before he could stop it, and once it was out he couldn't help himself. He hunched over and put his hands on his knees, his stomach heaving with laughter.

"What's so funny?" the man asked, in such an affronted tone that it made the situation just that much funnier."

"You -" John started, and then he trailed off again into giggles. He covered his mouth with his hand, taking a moment to compose himself, and then he started again. "You set fire to spaghetti. First time I've ever seen you leave your room, and you set fire to spaghetti."

"I've left my room plenty of times," the man said, and John shook his head, pursing his lips to stop himself from laughing once more.

"Not when I'm around, you haven't. Is that intentional, by the way? I was beginning to think you were avoiding me."

The man made a dismissive hand gesture. "You have a day job, I work best at night. It's no surprise our paths haven't crossed until now."

"It's a bit of a surprise. I mean, even if you work at night and I work during the day, it's been a week. Surely our schedules would have overlapped at some point, even just for a minute or two."

"I work best when I'm not surrounded by people who could distract me."

John pondered that for a moment. "So you have been avoiding me intentionally. To avoid distractions."

The man looked off to the side. "Somewhat," he said, but then, at John's change in facial expression, he said, "Oh, don't be like that. I avoid practically everyone."

"But you could have at least come and introduced yourself."

The man shrugged. "If I didn't expect myself to run into you any time soon, why would I have reason to introduce myself to you?"

"Because I'm your flatmate and we'd have to run into each other eventually?"

"Then, obviously, I'd have introduced myself when it became necessary – that is, when I did, eventually, run into you. And so, on that note," – he extended his hand – "I'm Sherlock Holmes."

It was an odd situation for an introduction, but it was an introduction, which was more than John had been expecting at that point. So, John reached out and clasped the man's hand. "John Watson," he greeted. He glanced over at the saucepan, and then asked, "Do you normally cook spaghetti at three o'clock in the morning, or is that just because you've been trying so hard to avoid me?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't normally cook at all," he said, and John suppressed a grin – given the state of the man's spaghetti, 'not normally' cooking probably meant 'I've never cooked anything before in my life'.

"Okay," John said, once he was sure he wasn't going to laugh again. "Why now, then? At three o'clock in the morning, specifically."

"I was hungry. I felt this was my only option."

"Clearly, you are not well-educated in the land of twenty-four hour food places."

"And you are?"

"I spent eight years studying to become a doctor. During exam period, very few people manage to have food at regular hours. I basically lived off twenty-four hour pizza." He glanced at the clock, told himself that three o'clock in the morning was not a good time to eat fatty foods, and then decided that he didn't care. "Speaking of pizza," he continued, "fancy any?"

"Love some."

OoO

John's first meeting with his potentially vampiric flatmate ended with them sharing a box of pizza at three o'clock in the morning.

All in all, it was probably the best way they could have met.


End file.
